^Nielsen 2011: "Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons ... : for an anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic God ... because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers ... because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance—e.g., "God" is just another name for love, or ... a symbolic term for moral ideals."

^Edwards 2005: "On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion."

^Rowe 1998: "As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. Another meaning of 'atheism' is simply nonbelief in the existence of God, rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God. ... an atheist, in the broader sense of the term, is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology."

^ abHarvey, Van A.. „Agnosticism and Atheism”, in Flynn 2007, p. 35: "The terms ATHEISM and AGNOSTICISM lend themselves to two different definitions. The first takes the privative a both before the Greek theos (divinity) and gnosis (to know) to mean that atheism is simply the absence of belief in the gods and agnosticism is simply lack of knowledge of some specified subject matter. The second definition takes atheism to mean the explicit denial of the existence of gods and agnosticism as the position of someone who, because the existence of gods is unknowable, suspends judgment regarding them ... The first is the more inclusive and recognizes only two alternatives: Either one believes in the gods or one does not. Consequently, there is no third alternative, as those who call themselves agnostics sometimes claim. Insofar as they lack belief, they are really atheists. Moreover, since absence of belief is the cognitive position in which everyone is born, the burden of proof falls on those who advocate religious belief. The proponents of the second definition, by contrast, regard the first definition as too broad because it includes uninformed children along with aggressive and explicit atheists. Consequently, it is unlikely that the public will adopt it."

^Most dictionaries (see the OneLook query for "atheism") first list one of the more narrow definitions.

Runes, Dagobert D.(editor) (1942). Dictionary of Philosophy. New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co. Philosophical Library. ISBN0-06-463461-2. http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html. Accesat la 9 aprilie 2011. „(a) the belief that there is no God; (b) Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means "not theistic". The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term though widely current in the history of thought” – entry by Vergilius Ferm

^“The scientist David Sloan Wilson, though a nonbeliever, sees biological (group-survival-promoting) wisdom underlying religion. Working with samplings of people's experience from the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's studies, he also reports that “religious believers are more prosocial than non-believers, feel better about themselves, use their time more constructively, and engage in long-term planning rather than gratifying their impulsive desires. On a moment-by-moment basis, they report being more happy, active, sociable, involved and excited””. - “A Friendly Letter To Skeptics And Atheists: Musings On Why God Is Good And Faith Isn’t Evil”, David G. Myers, published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint 2008 by The David and Carol Myers Foundation

^“I want my attorney, my tailor, my valets, and even my wife to believe in God, and I fancy that then I'll be robbed and cuckolded less often." - Voltaire, "Dialogues between A, B and C" (1768).” - “A Friendly Letter To Skeptics And Atheists: Musings On Why God Is Good And Faith Isn’t Evil”, David G. Myers, published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint 2008 by The David and Carol Myers Foundation

^Ehrman, Bart (2008). „Suffering and a Crisis of Faith” (în engleză). God’s Problem. How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer (ed. Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader). New York: HarperCollins. p. 7. ISBN9780061578311. „But I had been asked to teach a course called “The Problem of Suffering in the Biblical Traditions.” I welcomed the opportunity because it seemed like an interesting way to approach the Bible: examining the responses given by various biblical authors to the question of why there is suffering in the world, in particular among the people of God. It was my belief then, and continues to be my belief now, that different biblical authors had different solutions to the question of why God’s people suffer: some (such as the prophets) thought that suffering came from God as a punishment for sin; some thought that suffering came from God’s cosmic enemies, who inflicted suffering precisely because people tried to do what was right before God; others thought that suffering came as a test to see if people would remain faithful despite suffering; others said that suffering was a mystery and that it was wrong even to question why God allowed it; still others thought that this world is just an inexplicable mess and that we should “eat, drink, and be merry” while we can. And so on. It seemed to me at the time, and seems so now, that one of the ways to see the rich diversity of the scriptural heritage of Jews and Christians was to see how different authors responded to this fundamental question of suffering.”

^William H. Swatos; Daniel V. A. Olson. "The Secularization Debate". Rowman & Littlefield. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml. Retrieved 19 August 2011. "Recently, quite amazing time series data on the beliefs of scientists were published in Nature. Leuba's standard for belief in God is so stringent it would exlude a substantial portion of "mainline" clergy. It obviously was an intentional ploy on his part. He wanted to show that men of science were irreligious."

^"Survey on physicians’ religious beliefs shows majority faithful". The University of Chicago. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml. Retrieved 2011–04-08. "The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University and published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally compared to 81 percent of all adults."

^"Scientists and Belief". Pew Research Center. http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx. Retrieved 2011–04-08. "A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1 Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."

^Shermer, Michael (1999). How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. New York: William H Freeman. pp. pp76–79. ISBN 0-7167-3561-X.

^According to Dawkins (2006), p. 103. Dawkins cites Bell, Paul. "Would you believe it?" Mensa Magazine, UK Edition, Feb. 2002, pp. 12–13. Analyzing 43 studies carried out since 1927, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that "the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind."

^“A Friendly Letter To Skeptics And Atheists: Musings On Why God Is Good And Faith Isn’t Evil”, David G. Myers, published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint 2008 by The David and Carol Myers Foundation, p.72